


Link

by nick_i_kenicki



Category: Mortel (TV 2019)
Genre: Breaking and Entering, Crushes, First Kiss, M/M, Mental Institutions, Mental Link, Sneaking Around, Telepathic Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:55:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23950429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nick_i_kenicki/pseuds/nick_i_kenicki
Summary: While visitng Victor at the institution he's staying at, Sofiane decides to sneak into Victor's room to hang out after visiting hours. Once there, the boys form a telepathic link and confront some of their feelings about each other.
Relationships: Sofiane Kada/Victor Wanderwelt
Comments: 12
Kudos: 70





	Link

**Author's Note:**

> Not beta read we die like men. This fandom needs more fic so I hope this does something for someone.

"I do therapy for about 5 hours a day, " Victor explained. He counted on his fingers. "Usually there's a meeting as soon as the day starts with a case worker, then a personal therapist after breakfast, then a group with people my age, next a group with people who have similar traumas, and finally another check in with the therapist or case worker." Victor looked down at his hands. "Ah. That's actually closer to six hours."

Sofiane made a face. A mix between horrified and impressed. "What the fuck bro? What do they think will happen if they give you five seconds without them?"

Victor laughed a little and shrugged. "I don't know, I think they'd rather be safe than sorry." He glanced over at Sofiane, but looked away before he could catch his gaze.

Victor knew exactly what they thought would happen. He knew Sofiane knew too. It was the reason the bathrooms didn't have doors and why they had to use crayons to write instead of pencils. It was to "keep patients safe" in the words of the ward's director. If Victor weren't a patient, he'd argue that they were being dehumanized, but he liked the lunches and his therapist so he bit his tongue.

Victor was also quite fond of the privileges he got as a low risk patient. Without those, he wouldn't have gotten to see Sofiane as often as he did.

They had fallen into a sort of routine the last few weeks. Sofiane would come visit Victor on the weekends and they would get permission to sit in the institute's yard, next to a shallow fountain for about an hour and a half. It had become the highlight of Victor's week.

Sofiane looked down at his phone. Victor knew it was a text from Reda by the little smile on his face. He tilted the phone so Victor could read it. 

Just as Victor thought, it was from Reda. It was a simple text that asked where Sofiane was and if he was with a girl. The tone of the text made it seem like there was some light ribbing involved. Victor just blinked and made a puzzled face at the phone, unsure of why it was funny.

Sofiane tapped Victor's forehead with his index finger and laughed. "Reda thinks you're my girlfriend! He thinks that I go out every weekend for some chick." He slung a heavy arm around Victor's shoulders. "It's fucking funny."

"Yeah I guess so," Victor said with a shrug.

The edges of Victor's world started going dark. A sensation he had forgotten. When Sofiane touched him, a flash of concepts sprung into his head. They were hard to make sense of but he leaned into the touch. Sofiane flexing in the mirror at himself, ignoring a call from his ex, and laughing with Reda so hard that his stomach hurt. The image made giddiness rise up in Victor's throat.

"What are smiling about, huh?" Sofiane asked. He pinched Victor's cheek and pulled him closer. Victor swatted his hand away. A guard who was standing a little ways away raised his eyebrows at the display, causing them to part and settle down.

When Victor caught his breath again, he just shook his head. "It's nothing really. I just missed hanging out. I wish you could stay."

Sofiane went quiet at that. He glanced around the perimeter of the institution. It was a low risk center so there weren't many cameras or strict precautions. He turned his attention toward the actual building. A fence, but just beyond that, Victor's ground level room. It was the one with drawings on the window. Sofiane could pick those dark sketches out anywhere. 

"Well, I guess I could," Sofiane said after some silence. Victor looked at him, questioning. Sofiane clarified. "I could just sneak in tonight. Have a little sleepover."

He shrugged, like the idea was nonchalant. As simple as sneaking up to his room back home after curfew. Something simple that teens did every other night. 

Victor raised his eyebrows. "If they catch you, you'll be arrested." His voice trembled without meaning to. It was sign enough how scary that prospect was.

Sofiane didn't speak. There wasn't any way he could tell Victor that potentially getting in trouble for visiting him was worth it. That something inside him needed to be there with Victor. To keep him close. He swallowed every kind word before they had the chance to tumble out and shook his head.

"It'll be okay. I'm not scared."

...

There were two check-ins in the middle of the night. Victor witnessed them on the many nights he couldn't sleep. A somewhat disengaged guard would peek into the rooms to make sure the patients were asleep, once at 22:00 and again at 05:00. That was a large margin of unsupervised time. The perfect sweet spot of time for Sofiane to hop the fence.

That night, Victor pretended to sleep through the first check-in, then got up and waited by the window for Sofiane. Just as they had planned, Sofiane got to the premises near midnight. His form was nearly indistinguishable from the shadows as he jumped the fence and sped across the clearing. He was at the room's window in record time.

When Sofiane got to the window a familiar surge of pain throbbed in Victor's head. Sofiane was using his powers to open it. He curled his hand at the base of the window and it buckled. Before the pain got too bad to bear, the wood splintered and the window flew open. Victor caught his breath and lent Sofiane a hand to pull himself in with.

"This is really illegal," Victor whispered as Sofiane barely acknowledged that as he made his way into the room. 

He stepped into the center of the room and spun to inspect each corner of the tiny room. Victor felt self-conscious of the bare walls. Other patients (some who hadn't even stayed nearly as long) had decorations lining the walls. All Victor had was a few drawings he had taped up for inspiration and two frameless pictures. One of his family and one of Sofiane, Louisa and him.

"You're so fucking depressing bro," Sofiane said while he shook his head. He sighed and sat on the edge of Victor's bed. Victor rolled his eyes and joined him, laying down instead.

"I don't know. I think I'm just different."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night."

"Shut up." Victor said with a laugh. Despite his earlier reservations, he moved to the farther end of the bed to make room. Sofiane just rolled his eyes and climbed under the covers.

"There's a lot of shit in my head. Some things I don't know if I'll ever be able to explain," Victor said. He watched Sofiane, dark eyes almost impossible to tell from the shadows.

"You know I'm here for you." Sofiane said. It wasn't a question– it was a fact.

Victor reached out, he wasn't sure what for exactly. He thought about the boys he saw at school and how easily they made contact. Fleeting touches that meant nothing. 

He wanted to touch Sofiane's hair. The idea came to him like an urge. A sudden, insatiable need to let his fingers rest on the bed of black curls. 

Louisa had done it to him before. Once when she cut his hair and again when they said their goodbyes. For someone who spent so long without much contact, the feeling was indescribable. Victor wanted to be the giver of such a wordless satisfaction and potentially receive it again.

Victor swallowed the semi-permanent lump of anxiety in his throat and closed the distance between his hands and Sofiane. 

At first Victor couldn't tell what he made contact with. It was soft and impossibly warm. He felt Sofiane's breath hitch when he moved up. It was more solid now. His cheek and cheekbone. The same face that had been consistently bruised when they met. Victor made a map in his head and moved up farther.

His hand curled around the shell of Sofiane's ear and finally made contact with his hair. It was softer than Victor had imagined. 

Sofiane reached out and placed a warm, rough hand on the back of Victor's neck. They watched each other like animals waiting to pounce, predator and prey. Neither wanting to make the first move and potentially ruin everything.

Right when the energy reached a certain height, Victor pulled away. "I can't. Not like this. Not here." He whispered. He didn't want a repeat of what happened before with Louisa, especially not when a panic attack could alert the guards and get them both in trouble. No. He wanted to do things right.

Sofiane didn't need an explanation. It was obvious from the way he held Victor's eyes that he knew. His voice was husky when he spoke, the kind of tenderness that was unique to his conversations with Victor. "It's okay."

And that was all Victor needed. He pushed forward and pressed his forehead to Sofiane's. The rush, the jolt, then the calmness descended on them all at once. There was no pain when they merged minds. 

The world inside was floaty until all the pressure made their bodies sink like lead. Inside, it was as dark as the bottom of the sea and just as silent. They weren't really themselves. They were made of the same things dreams were. The thing that made monsters out to be bigger than they were and lovers that much prettier. Making it so Sofiane, in the glow of the pale dreamy light, looked like a beautiful stranger.

Eyes a little too big, lips too pink like he had just been kissed and hair made of starry blacks. He was different but when Victor reached through the haze to touch him, the warmth was familiar.

Sofiane was rough. Victor knew it well. He could just see him as a child, sticky hands and pouty lips. The kind of kid people didn't leave unsupervised for too long, the kind his parents had to constantly chase after. Those jagged edges were ingrained into Victor now. He wanted to feel them deeper.

Sofiane made the first move. He leaned forward slow, like he was wading through water. Arms ready to hold, nerves on constant guard, then the skip of his heart before their lips met.

When they kissed, the weight wasn't there. It was Sofiane but it wasn't. It reminded Victor of every dream he had dreamt when they first met or the dusty portraits on his walls. An indescribable sensation of touch where there wasn't really any.

Victor exhaled into the kiss and let his mouth be teased by Sofiane's kitten licks and soft nibbles. Something about the kiss felt so big, like he was an empty vase before and Sofiane was the liquid he needed to feel full.

The reservations of the real world didn't exist anymore. Victor played with Sofiane's curls and traced his jugular with kisses and held him until it felt like there was nothing left to hold. He ignored the dull headache he started feeling and just let time pass. Hours doing everything they had always danced around.

After what seemed like an eternity, Victor separated their physical bodies. The blackness of their minds were replaced with the room's normal semi darkness. Some light was starting to stream in from outside and down the hall, Victor heard movement. People were waking up. They had spent hours inside their head together.

"I gotta go," Sofiane said in a husky voice. He didn't sound like himself anymore, but he took the words right out of Victor's mouth. He didn't make a move to leave though. The sensation of the mental kiss still on both of their mouths while they stared at each other.

"Promise not to make it weird?" Victor asked. He wasn't sure who exactly he was directing the question at, but Sofiane just nodded.

"I promise."

A beat of silence passed between them. Sofiane watched Victor's face, then sprung up. He heaved himself out of the bed and went back to the window. Victor followed him.

Sofiane sat on the windowsill. His figure was silhouetted by the glow of dawn light. He reached out and held the side of Victor's face like he had so many times before during their screaming matches. It was different though. It was tender. 

"See you next week" he mumbled. Before Victor could reply, Sofiane leaned in and left a peck on the corner of Victor's mouth. It didn't feel like the kisses they shared in their heads, soft in dreamlike. No, it was heavy and awkward. Real.

For some reason, that realization made Victor's face burn. He looked away so Sofiane wouldn't see the pink in his cheeks and said his goodbyes too.

Sofiane smirked at the blush and started climbing out of the window. Before he hit the ground though, Victor leaned out of the window and grabbed Sofiane by the collar. He kissed Sofiane again, somehow fast and slow all at once. He felt Sofiane laugh into the kiss. The smile was still glued to his face when they pulled away.

Victor cleared his throat. "See you next week."

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a comment if you liked this and link up with me on Tumblr @thingsarentgood if you want to talk about Mortel.


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